Can Cinema change our lives?

I haven't watched the latest movie Laghe Raho Munnabhai. But the reviews and discussions about this movie over the internet, news papers and TV channels have driven enough curiosity in my head. This movie particularly done something where no other movie never did. Perhaps the director would have never imagined the kind of impact he is getting now (hundreds of responses are pouring it seems after the movie release).


Couple of days back, I saw a video footage, where a group of medical students in Lucknow adopted Gandhigiri principles and they started to plant trees wearing Gandhian attire. This is what happened after the seeing this movie. I read in one newspaper that the numerologists and astrologer in mumbai are having difficult times, as this movie expressed on the superstitions. In one instance, according to this site, an old couple revoked their decision of seeing Vasthu for their
new home!!!!



The trend of this kind of moral preaching movies is in vogue perhaps. Our Tollywood too has something to offer through the Chiranjeevi's latest movie Stalin. There the philosophy is each one help three people. This movie too made some transformation like Sanjay Dutt's latest flick. Heard about some reviews like the people out of the theaters saying like our lives have been changed by this film. Of course, the Cinema, particular hero worship is much embedded in lives of people down the south than other parts in the country. The organizations like Stalin Chain, have been started by Chiru's fan clubs across Andhra Pradesh. This organization helps Orphaned poor children. It is transforming some lives. Very heartening to hear. Isn't it?

But I have one fundamental query. Whether this kind of change will have impact in long term. It just seems like ephemeral stories popping here and there in larger public domain. Why should we dictate our lives through cinema which is most of the time so unreal? Don't we have enough knowledge through our ancient wisdom or contemporary thinking to implement the transformation we would want?

The questions could be asked in these lines in 'n' number of ways. But where are the answers?? Only one thing is for sure, Cinema is very powerful medium (we have made it that way). I think it will have impact on our thoughts and actions in our day to day life. Its up to us, to find out how we would want cinema to be and how to use it in more constructive ways.

"Be a Citizen ????"

Now-a-days, Open Source Journalism is in vogue. The kind of potential the net users all over the world have is simply mind boggling. The best example would be Slashdot. In one instance, Jane's Intelligence Review, known to be internationally respected magazine, submitted its article to Slashdot readers for review. The review comments from the Slashdot users were enough for the magazine to ditch that article, without publishing. Read more.

Desi versions are also out. But in peculiar yet innovative way. The desi English News Channels have rolled out their own version of Citizen Journalism. "Be a Citizen Journalist" by CNN-IBN. "Be an I-Witness" by NDTV. And the Times Now webportal has its version called "Be a Citizen Reporter".

This strategy seems to be cool. You encourage your viewers to participate in news reporting. This strikes two-in-one deal. Viewership invariably goes up and the news content comes free with video footage, in some cases!!!

But there are many points to ponder on this concept which has very wide scope. This is one such example. It surely deserves a separate post.

Bholu-Lalu :- The Management Guru

Our own Lalu Prasad Yadav has become talk of the town. When I read a small column about his recent venture in ET, I was very curious to know how things actually are. Googled and found quite a good number of stories. Every one from blogs to news papers to TV portals talking about his latest avatar: Teaching management lessons at IIM A!!!

Few months back, he might have worried about his poor amount of attention he was getting in public. Now, the spotlight turned on him. He did some magic perhaps, the loss making railway made a complete U-turn. Some say, he has became darling of corporate houses. Find more here and here and here.

This made a professor at IIM A to do a case study on him. So he is taking management lessons at the prestigious institute.

This the mascot of Indian Railways: Bholu






Perhaps in the future, this bholu would be replaced with our Lalu, waving the green flag. :-)

The caption would read like this:

Lalu The Guard

Position Alternative III
Lalu, the guard showing green flag to the train.

In the name of Religion

To start with, in defensive mode, I am not in any kinda expert or scholar like to talk about on this sensitive issue like religion, God, theism and in the lines. This is my very personal opinions and beliefs.

Today, I read an article in The Hindu, regarding an Anglican priest, an priest of CE (Church of England) converted into Hindu and continue to officiate as a cleric. source.

There's so much hype all over about this issue. This might trigger digging of stories, studies, research papers, expert opinions on religious practices and global scenario. Discussion on things like: is it right to practice dual religion? would rise and there could plethora of discussions going on. After some time this news will die down for sure. It could vanish quickly or less quickly depending on the media coverage given to it and probability of making celebrity news item.

Why so much hype and importance given to an issue which is a personal decision and effects only one individual. Why wasting so much time and energy? There are many issues that need global attention.

No one is given chance to chose one's religion when he/she is born. When I was born in an Hindu family, my religion became Hindu. I am not given chance to choose the religion I like to follow. Same is the case with every one. This is not in any case of deprivation. Because we never worried about the chance that is never given to us. We accepted what our elders have given to us and followed it consciously or unconsciously in our lives. Few consciously realize and trend their own path like David Hart, about whom this issue is all about.

So its an individual decision and blowing this matter in any size (if not in positive way) , in my view, is just wastage of time and energy.

The Beast Machine

I was fed up with my old P3 machine for a long time. Even to run the age old NFS2 game, I gotto make all other process to stop. My firewall would itself consume all the memory. This made the booting time of the machine to good 10 mins. This also made me to schedule time for other things during my pc boots up. Even after machine is up, if I start to run two or more softwares, the PC would be dead by that time. All brickbats from my bro and sis. At last, I have decided to have new machine.

When I started to ask people which one is better one to buy, every one, literally everyone, asked me to go for P4. I was thinking I could try something else and buy the best within my budget.

I began to hunt all the websites, signed up in many tech forums, started threads to ask people who knows in and out of hardware parts.

To be honest, every one gave me good advice on how to buy. I kept questioning HOWs and WHYs on various components. Answers were simply flowing. Few answers were beyond my understanding. Some how I manage to understand after persisting questioning. The guys out there were patient enough to answer all my queries. This made me feel armed with more information on what machine should I buy.

I was lucky to decide to buy machine during the period when Intel introduced its juggernaut proccy Intel Core 2 Duo. At the same time, AMD slashed its processor prices to the whopping 50%!!!

50% dude!!! Its not a small amount. The 16 k proccy now, I can buy it for just 8k!!! That's what I did.

My new machine:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+
MSI K8N mobo
Nvidia GeForce chipset
512 MB DDR RAM

Though it may not suppress the new Intel Core Duo, still it beats hands down all the machines in the 12 k price range (proccy + mobo).

Now, never experienced, gr8 computing happening at home. At the end of the day, I am contented that I have got the best config at best prices. :-)